Gogrinder

Over the last few months, I have found myself more and more in love with gogrinder. The problem was, I would learn something, and would say 'Wow, interesting!' and then go off and forget it right away. You know, when you are in a game and you look at position and say 'I KNOW I have studied this before, but I can for the heck of me not remember what I am supposed to do now.' Sometimes I still can remember what I am NOT supposed to do, mostly because the consequences of the mistake caused me more pain than learning the correct way.



I tried many different methods. For a while I was using uligo to review things I had learned. It wasn't bad, and actually is better than gogrinder when replaying pro games. But what I missed in uligo, was the historical data. Yes, I made 80 % on those problems today, but is that better or worse than I did yesterday? What about last month? Is there improvement, or did I just forget everything I knew perfectly a month ago?

This is where gogrinder is great. It keeps track of current and past high scores, both for the collection you are working on as for bigger collections. It is very easy to organize your problems into meaningful collections and keep track of how you are doing. It also enables to quickly and effectively review something I was studying a few months ago.

Every morning, I do some gogrinder collections and weep about how much I still have to learn ^^

Aikido and Go

This weekend, I have been participating in an aikido / swordmanship workshop with Mr Dave Lowry. One thing that struck me a few times are some similarities between aikido and go.



Yesterday, he was talking about not showing your intentions to your opponent, which brought me right back to 'Preserve the aji' in go. So many of the same reasons behind it, both in aikido and go. Keep your options open. Don't reveal your plans to your opponent.

Today, he was showing how masters in swordmanship work on eliminating every superfluous movement. It was like listening to someone talk about stone efficiency. Very interesting to see the similarities.

Back to Basics

Yet again, I am finding myself going back to the basics. The last few days, I have been studying the L-group. We all know that the L-group dies as it stands. But what about a L+1 with two hanes? How the heck do I get that double ko in L+1-group? So many basic questions.

I discovered fast that I still had not mastered the simplest of groups with all its variations, so I have been studying and studying, so that I can see a certain L related shape and know immediately that it is alive for now, but I can make a gote seki later.

The study is both fascinating and frustrating, it makes me realize yet again how deep go is, how many variations you can get from a simple shape with a few variations. During my workshop, it was amazing how many people did not know even the simplest way to kill an L+1-group. It made me even more determined to know this shape in and out and in all variations, since it comes up in games all the time.

So many L-group vars, so little time.

Back from Workshop

Last night, I came home from my workshop. It was excellent as always, I learned a lot of things. I feel that this time I understood bigger concepts. Maybe I was more ready to learn about them than during earlier workshops.



One big thing I learned is that my plans need to be more flexible. I cannot base my play on some future situation that will never show up, instead I should look at the board and decide on best move right now. Yes, it sounds so simple. But I managed to screw it up too many times.



Another thing I learned is that I often already know how to play, but for some stupid reason I convince myself that this isn't good idea on this particular board. I guess I need to be less hasty.

I also learned that dan players can have amazing gaps in their knowledge, making me realize yet again that we just know nothing.



Many people asked her how to get stronger, and every single time her answer was 'do tsumego.' Not surprising, but it's good reminder.



We played Survivor Go again, and I managed to get myself kicked out on my second move. And yes, that was yet another situation where I knew the right move, but hastily played the wrong move instead. Bad habit.



On the last day, we played simul. I totally screwed up one corner, but did mostly ok on the rest of the board.

I had a wonderful time, and am already counting the days till next year's Memorial Day workshop.

I uploaded many pictures if you want to see some.

Workshop

Today, I will leave my house and drive through the Green Mountains to upstate New York. I was going to pack last night, but a friend asked for a game, and somehow the time got away from me. Oh well, I don't need much but a few books, and my PDA. I can easily do that in the morning.



I am looking forward to a weekend filled with go, serious games, and much learning to be done. I am looking forward to seeing my baduk friends again, and spend enjoyable time with them playing, watching games, and hiking.

And let's not forget the excellent food. Always amazingly good.

I'll see y'all back in a few days!

I Still Hate Talking Clocks

I had a great tourney, but talking clocks STILL are the bane of my existence.

The short story: I went 1-3, playing as shodan.



The longer story

The tournament was very small, only 14 players. Not unusual for Middlebury , but means there were a lot of handicap games.

My first game, I played against the only other shodan in the field, and tried to do my darndest best to attack his weak groups. I wasn't as successful as I wanted to be, but I managed to kill a big group. Thanks to the stupid talking clocks, it came back to life again in byo yomi... I was not happy. Luckily, my opponent wasn't happy either, because he unexpectedly ran out of time. I have no idea whether I would have won the game with the group back to life, at that point I didn't have enough time to count. I won the game on time.

My second game, I gave 2H to a 2k. I started out well, and had great thickness. I feel I wasn't using it enough though, will have to look at the game and figure out what I could have done differently. I screwed up a corner invasion, and by that time, I felt the board wasn't wide enough anymore to take compensation somewhere else, so I resigned. I will study that corner invasion.

Third game was challenging at first. I had to give 5H to a 5k, and I had serious doubts whether I would be able to do so. But lo and behold, I managed to do just fine and made a furikawari, and was ahead by about 15 points.

I was all happy, but he kept trying to live with his dead group, which ate up a lot of time and thinking, but eventually even he was convinced he was dead. By then, we were in endgame, and I was in the last 25 seconds of my byo yomi. This was not good. My Ing clock kept yelling at me. I glared at it, but it didn't help. I tried to ignore it, but was only half successful. I got hasty and made stupid endgame error. By that time we were the only ones left playing, so at least we gave the public some amusement. There was an audible, collective gasp when I gave away 15 points for no good reason at all.

I knew this was the game, but we were so close to the end that I finished it anyway. The counting revealed that B won by 0.5 points. Funny ^^ I made his day :)

In a way, I didn't really care, since I had proven to myself that I could give a 5k 5H after all. I had a very won game. I just needed to throw those Ing clocks out of the window.

By the time the last game came around, I was kind of tired and the best way to describe the game would be "a mess". After a while, I resigned in disgust at my own moves.

All in all, I had a great time. I have four games, all of which contain lots of learning opportunities. And I am happy I didn't lose all my games, but only three of them ^^.

Few observations:

• Yet again, I was the only female, but then the field wasn't very big I guess;
• I was the only one recording my games;
• I was the first in the list of players in this tourney (from strong to weak) which was a very weird feeling. I am too weak to be the strongest;
• Totally unrelated to go: I saw a river otter on the way back home, which was a nice bonus to the day;
• Listening to Queen in the car convinced me yet again that "Another One Bites the Dust" would be on my go music play list if I actually would want to listen to music while playing;
• I am happy I decided to go to this tourney after all. Last week I had myself convinced that I shouldn't go, but a few days ago, I unconvinced myself of that.

Tournament Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, I will drive up to Middlebury, VT, to play in a go tournament. Unlike usual, I don't seem to be suffering from much pre-tournament stress. Interesting. I think it helps that this usually is a very small tournament and I tend to know most of the people there. Not to mention that it will be a nice day off from other stuff going on in my life.



I am just going to regard it as a day to play three or four good games, and not care about losing or winning. Yesterday, I had good preparation at go club, where I played a small simul. I gave 3H to KGS 3k and 4H to AGA 5k. Won the 3k game, lost the 5k game. But I felt ok about my game in both instances and it gave me much more self confidence to play handicap games tomorrow.

Don't Panic!

Last week, I played a game which really taught me yet again not to panic. Yes, I know I have realized that before, but I am a slow learner.



The game progressed normally up to here.



As you can see, W is making a nice moyo, but B has good cash, so B can play calmly and win easily (I am Black). For a few moves, B did just that.

But suddenly, W's moyo grew and grew, and B's cash was getting smaller and smaller. I convinced myself that I was headed towards horrible doom. So I did what I do best. Panic!



I 'knew' I had to jump in, so I chose a likely spot, and did just that (F12). When sendol reviewed, this move got a dry 'looks deep' comment. Yeah, maybe it was just a tad deep indeed ^^.

The game went on and I did eventually win, but on my opponent's mistakes, not on my good play. Let's see what would have happened if I had really played calmly. Or as sendol said, the easy way for B. He showed me that it is hard for W to build the center.



sendol [-]: left side w is not big
NannyOgg [-]: i could just have stayed calm, i see
NannyOgg [-]: it felt HUGE :)
sendol [-]: not that huge^^
NannyOgg [-]: ok :)
sendol [-]: w cant make big area any more
sendol [-]: now yose

This game made me realize yet again that one should not panic, but count and play calmly. It sounds so easy in theory. But it definitely is an area in which I have tons of room for improvement.

Here is link to full review by Sendol.

Chinese Opening

This week is Chinese Opening week at our go club. We decided to study the Chinese opening by all listening to the first lecture at Guo Juan's audiogolessons, and study it together at go club.

The studying by ourselves went well, but we got kicked out of club early today. So we only studied for a bit together. Still, it was useful to have study buddies and motivation, and all look at the same lecture. I made an SGF file from the lesson, to help me look up details more easily. I knew most of the things in the first lecture, but it was a good refresher.

Today's go club was sad because of missing J, who had to go back to Singapore. It just isn't the same without him. But the good thing was that we had a visitor from London / Japan, who actually hiked six hours on the Appalachican trail to reach us (he was visiting his sister in a neighboring town). So he got to hike the Appalachian trail AND he got to play go at our club. Very nice gentleman, I enjoyed meeting him.

He was 6k, so I gave him 6H. I still am not good at giving handicap. I made big mistake when I took the corner at some point instead of jumping out. I was behind enough that I had to kill something, and luckily black obliged by not leaving a weak group. B flailed for a while, but eventually resigned. Not easy to play handicap as W, but I am getting better at it.

Next I played a 4k friend, at 4H. The game was pretty even (after he donated one of his corners in middle game) and I felt mostly ok about that game. I resigned because we wanted to get some studying in, but I feel that W was hopeful by then.

I will try to play a bunch of KGS games with Chinese opening, since I haven't used it seriously for quite a while. Will be interesting.

Pondering

Playing my three year old. I love the way how she is seriously pondering the board.

Avalanche Madness

Minue has been teaching me several contemporary variations of the large avalanche joseki. It has been utterly fascinating to me, seeing all the half dead groups, learning interesting tesuji and new shapes.



I don't expect to use it in games much, but studying it is giving me a new sense of power. Of course, next time I play it in a game, I am just as likely to mess it up as to get it right, but I will be able to learn from that too, right?

And for now, it gives me something to do when I take the Oggettes to the playground.

Game Record of Mirror Handi Game

I uploaded the game record of the mirror handicap game. I still have no idea how I should have resisted his strategy. I did consider mirroring him after I played tengen, like someone suggested, but that somehow felt wrong. I didn't want to stoop down to his lows.

It is an interesting problem. He ended up winning the game by 10.5 points, so I guess his strategy was successful this game. I don't think he is learning much about go though.

Mirror Go in Handicap Game

Last week, I was playing on one of my bogus accounts when I ran into this situation. I always play Chinese rules, so that means free handicap placement. This was a 4H game and he placed his handicap stones like this.



I thought 'Great! This is going to be an interesting game!' I wasn't too worried. I figured he might not know how to use this power. And if he did, we would have some good fighting, which is always fun.

Well... It didn't take long for me to realize what he was doing.



He was mirroring my moves... I know there are ways of breaking mirror go, involving ladders and such. But in this case, his four center handicap stones were interfering with that. I took a long break to ponder what to do and came up empty.

So I played a bit more and then decided to stop the mirroring. I played 29 as a probe to see what he would do, he replied at 30.



I tried to set up things so that if he would mirror more, it would go bad for him, but not for me. I wasn't very succesful at it though. He stopped mirroring anyway.

I have been pondering what to do next time this happens. Play the tengen move sooner and take it from there? Are there other strategies I can use? It's an interesting question, I welcome any input people have on it.

The Sorry State of My Social Life

Oh noes! KGS is down again! Let's hope it's not going to be another three days.

The recent and current KGS problems have shown me something I hadn't noticed before. I hadn't realized that almost every single one of my gtalk contacts is a go player. During the Long KGS Outage, almost everyone's first message would be about kgs being down.

And if I hadn't lost misplaced my cell phone, you would notice that 95 % of my contacts on there are go players too.

I guess today will be go study day instead of chatting playing. Or maybe I should try having a life! OK, maybe not ^^ Time to work on haengma problems.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Yes, I know, I haven't been posting much. I have been playing and studying, but not as much as usual because of some family stress. In between all the stress, we still manage to get baduk in though, at interesting locations.



Click here for more photos at this Vermont lake.

Baduk in Vermont

Playing go outdoors is addictive. This time, we got ourselves to the top of a local mountain.



Many more pictures can be found on my flickr site. Who wants to play indoors when the weather is this nice?

Last iwamoto game 4-4

Last week, I played my last iwamoto game. I yet again didn't feel very focused during the game and overplayed too much, ended up losing by a few points. Oh well. Sendol reviewed the game. I learned a lot of interesting things during the review, so happy about the game anyway ^^. If only that I made too many greedy moves :p

This was the last game in the tournament. I can't say that I played very well, but I guess 4-4 is a reasonable result. Next year, I'll have to enter again and do better.

Go in the Gorge

Last week, our go club took the gobans to a local gorge to play. There is something wonderful about playing on the rocks, in between water and nature.



We had a gorgeous day, sun, water, friends, and go. What more can one ask for in life?



I uploaded many more pictures to flickr.

Cookies!

Last week at go club, J brought those home baked 'goban cookies'



Everyone tremendously enjoyed them.



And no, those are not ing stones, those are black and white M&M's.

Thank you, j!

Iwamoto tourney 4-3

Last weekend, I played my seventh iwamoto game. It was 11pm, so my handicap stones were mostly asleep, which is always good. I won the game, but do not feel particularly good about it. I managed to pull ahead, but then made too many stupid mistakes. Still won by a few points, but I have many things I need to work on.

One more iwamoto game to go. I don't know yet when I will play.

Due to some family stress, I haven't played and studied as much as I would like. I hope things will calm down soon, and I can go back to studying more.